


Partners

by Merkwerkee



Category: Void Jumpers
Genre: Drowning, Ocean Floor, Understanding, Underwater, parternership, s3 e4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27373432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: When his suit fails at the bottom of a mile of ocean, Sam has to try and open himself up to trust one more time
Kudos: 1





	Partners

So. This was it.

Truth to tell, Sam had always on some level expected to die at the bottom of the ocean. First at the hands of the scientists back in the station they’d just left, then in whatever harebrained escape plan he’d manage to hatch after being bonded to the Puq, then at the tentacles of whatever the hell was lurking down here; him and the bottom of the ocean were never going to end well, and that was all there was to it.

A vasty kind of resignation welled up within him as his breaths grew short in the stale air of the suit. In his line of work, he couldn’t be too outraged at the inevitability of death. Every day was a chance to get shot, stabbed, sued, or worse, and while it was more unlikely to happen some days than others, he’d reconciled himself to it long ago. Looking back now on the things he’d done, memories welling up in the absence of light that was pressing on his eyeballs, he couldn’t bring himself to really regret any of the things he’d done.

 _We got it wrong every time,_ his alternate self had told him. It was strangely comforting to know that he’d always chosen wrongly, no matter what reality he was in. Three ex-wives here, and uncountable more across every variation of reality, and he’d never managed to pick the right one; if there were no right choices, he couldn’t regret taking the chances he’d had. Just because he’d never managed to keep one didn’t mean that the times he’d had with them were any less special - he’d loved each one enough to marry her, after all. No, he couldn’t regret the choices he’d made and the times he’d had, and that in and of itself was a kind of solace in the lightless depths a mile and more below the surface.

It was the things he’d left undone that he regretted. The words he hadn’t said when his wives tired of him, the destruction he hadn’t wreaked on the facility behind him - the overtures he hadn’t made to the entity tied to his soul. Sam didn’t want to die; not now, not here, not with so much left unfinished. There just didn’t seem to be much he could do about it, trapped in what might as well be a coffin that fit him like a second skin.

“Hey Sam, it looks like we’re pretty stuck, eh?”

Sam blinked, a little hazily. Ever since they’d spoken to each other in the facility, Sam could hear the Puq much more clearly. Apparently they could exchange words now, not just vague feelings and flashes of memories, and Sam felt a wave of regret batter against the bulwarks of resignation he’d armored himself with against his impending death. When he died, would he take the Puq with him? Or would the elemental be freed to enter the cycle of rebirth for spriggans once again? It was the same kind of doubt they’d both had over being separated, and Sam could only regret that they hadn’t tried it now. If they were separate, maybe the Puq wouldn’t be trapped here in this suit with him, dying slowly of oxygen deprivation.

“Yeah. Yeah. Think, uh, this is it.”

Sam’s words were slow and a little slurred; lack of oxygen was a hell of a drug. He could feel a wave of worry that wasn’t his own wash down his spine, and it warmed him a little. Whatever his past coldness towards the spriggan, the Puq didn’t seem to be blaming him for it now and that…that was something. More than his second ex-wife had ever given him, that was for sure.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be. You, uh, you want to…tag me in? I could probably get us out of this pickle. I wanna keep everyone alive!”

Sam blinked again, mind racing. That was everything he’d been afraid of since he’d woken up with a new passenger in his body. Every shock of void magic that sent him away and let the Puq control his body, every second of agony he endured when he tried in vain to hold on to his physical form - for as long as he’d been the Puq’s other half, he’d clung desperately to himself and his human body. He’d been terrified that if he let go, he wouldn’t be _Sam_ anymore, that the Puq would take him over and never let him return and that would be the end of Sam.

But now he’d spoken face to face with the Puq, and remembered that there were two victims in this body, not one - the Puq hadn’t asked to be a part of him any more than Sam had asked to have an elemental tied to his soul. Being tied to Sam had changed the Puq in ways so fundamental that the spriggan could only truly express them in his own language; Sam had changed too, but he’d obstinately rejected those changes. Now, though, what did he have to lose? If this was truly it, he’d be embracing oblivion either way.

And, if only just, he trusted the Puq enough to get them out of this mess.

“You know what? I’m okay with tagging you in. ‘Cause…I don’t think there’s a backseat anymore. All right.” He sucked in a breath that didn’t really help any and grunted as black spots danced across his vision. It had to be now, or it was going to be never. “Have at.”

The Puq didn’t need any more permission than that, and Sam steeled himself against the first frissions of pain even as he quelled the almost overwhelming urge to resist. This time, though, he had chosen the change; it had not been forced upon him by an outside agent. His heart turned to crystal, and he could feel the Puq right with him shudder as the sharp points pierced the other nearby organs. And then…the pain continued, but almost muffled? It still hurt, but it wasn’t the all-consuming, bone-crunching agony he was used to.

He and the Puq were equals as their body shifted, side-by-side each other metaphorically, and he felt the wave of cheer that rippled through the Puq even as the spoke on a level they’d never manage at any other time.

 _Don’t you know, Sam? A pain shared is a pain halved_.

Sam had to smile even as he fully submerged into the phase state. The Puq was right.

And maybe not working alone had its advantages after all.


End file.
